A log of my personal experience being a libertarian in a non-libertarian world.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Busy, busy

I've been busy lately responding to things I have read. My responses, in my humble opinion, are pretty good. Below are the e-mail exchanges and the context inwhich they happened:First, I read an article by a guy named Jeff Jacoby about the economics of recycling. I first stumbled on the article as a link on Cafe Hayek:

I decided to write to Mr. Jacoby:"I've read the comments section after your article on recyclingand...wow...did you ever hit a nerve with a lot of people.

Your point about the value of recycling was lost on them entirely.

Let me add two small factoids:

I lived in Cleveland when they first started mandatory recycling. Up untilthen, the only real recycling was done at the aluminum can collectionmachines scattered around town. You rarely saw an aluminum can layingaround because it represented cash to someone. Anyway, we had to separateour recyclables into bags for three different types of materials, eachcolor coded to make them easy for the recycling company to identify.Aluminum, as I recall, was blue. You could drive the streets of Clevelandon trash day and find everyone's various colored recycling bags at thecurb...but hardly ever see a blue bag. Why? Because the early morningtrash pickers beat the recycling trucks to the aluminum. This caused sucha disruption in the recycler's cash flow plans that the City of Clevelandhad to pass an ordinance against anyone except the City's chosen recyclingcompany from taking the blue bags.Implication: the only thing worth recycling was aluminum...and it wasalready being recycled before the mandatory recycling scheme.

Second story:I live in a suburb of St Louis. We have single stream recycling. Myfamily pays about $43 per quarter for the recycling service, and I estimatethat we produce about 400 pounds of recyclables during that time. Thatcomes to about $215 per ton. Hmmmm. Doesn't seem like such a good deal tome. I wonder how many resources are consumed by those $215 worth ofexpenses...versus the $40 to landfill a ton (or $8 for our 400 lbs ofrecyclables).....

Funny you should mention that -- it is *precisely* the point I am going tobegin my second column with. In my neighborhood every week, a little oldVietnamese lady goes through the trash, diligently removing all thealuminum cans. I have no idea what she'll do with the big new bins, whichare as tall as she is.

I'm a transplanted Clevelander too -- grew up in South Euclid andUniversity Heights.

all the best,

Jeff JacobyOp-Ed ColumnistThe Boston Globe"

Ahhhh. My new best friend.

I also responded to an invitation by the local Republican Party to view a movie about radical islam. I declined by writing:

"I will not be attending this showing. While I have not seen this particular movie, I have researched the subject sufficiently to no longer be concerned with radical muslims. They are no more a threat to our national security than is the KKK, which is not to say that they don't exist, just that they are of such marginal significance that the real danger is in overstating their power. In our fear of an impotent enemy, we have passed the Constitution-busting Patriot Act, damaged habeas corpus, initiated domestic spying on innocent Americans, passed the Real ID Act, passed the Military Commissions Act, excused torture, intiated two wars (maybe soon to be three), and have now introduced full body scanners at airports. All this in what used to be a free country. Our fear is our enemy, not radical muslims.

We need to be cognisant of our provocations that have helped to fuel the Jihad. Invading muslim countries that have not attacked us, propping up muslim dicators, overthrowing elected muslim governments, etc., has given the radical muslims legitimate cause celebre around which to chant their hate for America. If we followed the traditional Republican formula of NOT policing the world, we would remove from them the little traction they have in the muslim world, and virtually all traction in the West.

Now, more than ever, we need a non-interventionist foreign policy and we need to reject fear-mongering.

I can't see how this movie can possibly help in that regard.

Ron Johnson"

I was surprised, and pleased, to get the following response:

"You raise some valid points. I am only the messenger on this one. I was asked to forward the invitation from Gravois Township and did so. I know nothing about the content of the movie. It would be interesting to see if the issues you raised are mentioned in the movie or how the history of attacks have/when occurred. I believe we have mishandled several issues and I have concerns about those as well. I don't know who produced this film and I don't know if it only concerns incidents in the United States.

But thanks for letting me know and again, I was just asked to pass this along.

About Me

When I was sixteen years old, I was introduced to the philosophy of freedom. Its' principles are simple. Its' implications can be very complex and at times apparently contradictory. Over the past 35 years of applying libertarian principles to real life, I've learned that if there is a conflict between the two, there will be pain before resolution. One or the other is right, and one or the other must be given up.
This blog will be, I hope, a record of real-world situations that I or people close to me have found themselves in, and how libertarian principles were applied or modified.